Posthumous events affect rated quality and happiness of lives

Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4, June 2009, pp. 273–279
Posthumous events affect rated quality and happiness of lives
Paul Rozin? and Jennifer Stellar
University of Pennsylvania
Abstract
Diener and colleagues (2001) illustrated that individuals rely heavily on endings to evaluate the quality of a life. Two
studies investigated the potential for posthumous events to affect rated life quality, calling into question the intuitive
“ending” of a life at death. Undergraduates read a series of short life narratives to assess the consequences of posthumous
reversals of fortune on judgments of the goodness and happiness of the life. In a 2x2 within-subjects design, lives positive
and negative in valence were displayed twice: once from birth to death and once each life was followed by a posthumous
event of opposite valence. Results demonstrated that posthumous reversals of fortune shift judgments of the goodness
and happiness of the life in the direction of the valence of the posthumous event. These effects were not related to an
individual’s religiosity or the degree to which the life made an engaging story. We suggest that the posthumous happy
effect may be a case of a more general process, which we call retroactive re-evaluation.
Keywords: endings, quality of life, happiness, positive psychology, subjective well-being, death, posthumous events,
happiness.
1 Introduction
produced by memories of actual experiences, and in par-
ticular, a disproportionately high in?uence of the end
Evaluative judgments of events are heavily in?uenced by
state (Frederickson, 2000; Kahneman, Wakker, & Sarin,
the terminal event, a feature that Kahneman and his col-
1997; Frederickson & Kahneman, 1993). Judgments of
leagues encompass within what they call the peak-end ef-
the quality of complete lives must be determined by the
fect (Kahneman, Wakker & Sarin, 1997; Kahneman et al.,
self, near or at the end of life, or by third parties based on
1993). When the sequence of events in question happens
experiences of the life of another or narrative life descrip-
to be a life history, the sad reality is that death appears to
tions. In a study asking participants to rate the goodness
be the end of the sequence. Hence, lives by their nature
of lives based on brief life narratives, Diener, Wirtz and
have a negative ending. As well, because of the aging
Oishi (2001) showed that judgments of the quality of a
process, the positive peak in a life is usually well before
life were heavily in?uenced by endings. The ending of a
the end, and the later years are often associated with a
life is typically considered to be at death, however some
decline in competences, power, and in?uence. These ex-
aspects of a life, particularly those having to do with the
istential realities should bias life-evaluative judgments in
life’s meaning, can be affected by events that occur after
a negative direction. In this study, we explore this situa-
a life is over. In this regard, we note that most of the work
tion, and examine the degree to which this negative bias is
on the end-effect has manipulated hedonic rather than
minimized by incorporating lives into a larger framework
meaningful events. We believe that posthumous events
that includes posthumous events.
act much like traditional end-events, shifting life judg-
In the last decade, there has been a growing interest in
ments in the direction of the valence of the posthumous
understanding well-being, as evidenced by recent books
event. One can understand that the quality of a life judg-
(Diener & Suh, 2000; Kahneman, Diener & Schwarz,
ments might include posthumous events, but it seems un-
1999), and the development of appropriate measurement
likely that judged happiness of a life would be affected
tools (e.g., Diener et al., 1985). The positive psychol-
by posthumous events. Nonetheless, in this study, we
ogy movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), di-
included life happiness ratings as well as quality of life
rected at optimizing the quality of life, has stimulated
ratings. Studies of end effects, particularly work by Kah-
much of this work.
neman and his colleagues, typically involve a “hedonic”
Quality of life (lifetime subjective well being) is a ret-
as opposed to “meaning” manipulation. It is reasonable
rospective measure; as such, it suffers from distortions
to believe that changes in meaning are more likely to re-
?ect signi?cantly upon prior events.
?Address: Paul Rozin, Department of Psychology, University of
Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104–6241. Email:
The religiosity of the participants was measured to ex-
rozin@psych.upenn.edu.
amine whether shifts in judgments of life quality (and
273

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Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4, June 2009
Posthumous events and happiness
274
perhaps happiness) due to posthumous events are in?u-
life. The total life happiness rating correlated a mean of
enced by the strength of religious beliefs. Many religions
0.59 (range 0.49 to 0.68) with personal good life. Unlike
de?ne a good life by the total number of a person’s good
the ?rst three questions, it is not directly about quality
works, which is not necessarily bounded by death. Simi-
of life. The last question, about total unhappiness in the
larly, meaning in life, which is stressed by religions, over
life, correlated a mean of ?0.66 (range ?0.61 to ?0.75)
hedonism, can sometimes only be realized after the life is
with the happiness question. Because these questions are
over. Furthermore, to the extent that a person believes in
in principle independent (e.g., one life could have a lot
an after-life, associated with many religions, the person
of happiness and unhappiness, and another little of ei-
might be able to “appreciate” the posthumous events.
ther), we retained both in the analysis. Therefore, for the
The present study involved judgments by American
present study, we used only the responses to the ?rst (per-
college students of the goodness of lives and the amount
sonal good life), fourth (total happiness) and ?fth (total
of happiness (and unhappiness) in these lives. We used
unhappiness) questions.
a within-subject design, in which the participants rated
The 18 life scenarios were chronological presentations
eighteen different life paragraphs. Four lives, embedded
of a life, with a focus on career and major life events. The
within the other life stories, were designed to evaluate the
?rst and last of the 18 scenarios were identical, and de-
effect of posthumous reversals of fortune. The life histo-
scribed a baseline or what we call “vanilla” life with no
ries were presented in narratives, each a short paragraph,
signi?cant main event. This “vanilla” life history was de-
some of which included posthumous events that reversed
scribed as follows: “Jerry works hard, has a wife and two
the valence of the life ending.
kids. He lives in a small town where he raises his kids
who grow up and go to college. When he is not at work
2 Study 1
he spends much of his time on his hobby, ?y-?shing. He
retires from his job at age 65 and lives until the age of
75.” The beginning of this life was repeated with a dif-
2.1 Method
ferent character name, for each of the 18 scenarios, with
Participants were 68 students (29 male, 39 female) at the
departures from the baseline story beginning at or after
University of Pennsylvania who received one half hour
the fourth decade (30–39 years old) of life. The initial
of research participation credit in introductory psychol-
segment of each life was the same: “X (?rst name) works
ogy by participating in this study. The questionnaire was
hard and has a wife and two kids,” and all characters died
completed at the student’s own or another computer ter-
at age of 75, with no further detail on the circumstances
minal, and was presented and tabulated using Survey-
of their death.
Monkey. The questionnaire included 18 short life his-
Of the 16 experimental stories, four were speci?cally
tories, for each of which the participant was asked to re-
included to test the effect of posthumous events, and
spond to ?ve questions, as follows: “For you personally,
it is these four that are described in the present study.
how good is this life?”, “How good is this life in gen-
Four others were designed to examine the comparison be-
eral?”, “How good a life would this be for your child to
tween meaningful versus hedonic focal events, and four
live?”, “How much total happiness is in this life?”, and
involved measurement of duration neglect or location of
“How much total unhappiness is in this life?” The scale
a critical event in a life (early or late). The 16 life events
ranged from zero to one hundred for all questions. For the
were conceptually organized into eight pairs, which were
quality of life questions zero was “as bad as possible” and
parallel except that the critical life event was either pos-
one hundred was “as good as possible.” For the happiness
itive or negative. The life histories varied in length from
questions zero was “no happiness” and one hundred was
29 words (2 sentences) to 85 words (4 sentences). They
“as much happiness as possible.” For the unhappiness
were arranged in a random order or a reversal of that same
questions zero was “no unhappiness” and one hundred
random order, except that the sequence of 18 began and
was “as much unhappiness as possible.”
ended with the baseline “vanilla” life history.
We discovered that responses to the ?rst (personal) and
For the present analysis, we consider only the four
second (general) question were virtually the same. For
stories that were included to test the effects of posthu-
each of the four stories of relevance to the present paper,
mous reversals, and the initial baseline (“vanilla”) story
we computed a Pearson correlation of these two ratings,
for comparison purposes. The four critical stories were
across the 68 participants. The average correlation was
comprised of two pairs of stories. In each pair, one story
0.78 (range 0.62 to 0.88); similarly, the average correla-
described the life up to the point of death (we designate
tion between the personal good life rating and the rat-
this the “up-to-death ” story), and the second was the
ing for the life of one’s child was 0.70 (range 0.63 to
same exact story followed by a posthumous reversal. The
0.75). These high correlations justi?ed our use of only
posthumous story continued after death, and presented in-
the ?rst (personal) question for the rating of quality of a
formation that reversed the valence of the critical mean-

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Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4, June 2009
Posthumous events and happiness
275
Table 1: Mean ratings of goodness and happiness of lives contrasting lives with their posthumous reversals. (N=68).
Up-to-death
Up-to-death
Posthumous
Effect size
Story
Rating
minus
t(68) paired
story mean
story mean
(Cohen’s d)
posthumous
Drug
Goodness
86.0
57.9
28.1
9.475***
1.15
discovery
Happiness
84.8
71.7
13.1
5.629***
.68
Unhappiness
18.4
31.6
?13.2
4.958***
.60
Political
Goodness
24.6
46.1
?21.5
6.950***
.79
prisoner
Happiness
30.0
38.8
?8.8
3.395***
.41
Unhappiness
71.1
64.8
6.3
2.285*
.28
*** p<.001, * p<.05.
ingful event in the story. The two pairs of stories are
were 0.70 for goodness, 0.59 for happiness, and 0.44 for
presented below, with the posthumous addendum for that
unhappiness.
version underlined.
The critical comparisons are between two pairs of sto-
Positive drug story pairs (positive refers to the valence
ries: the positive drug cure stories with an up-to-death
within the lifetime): “Alex devotes his life to ?nding
or reversed posthumous ending, and the negative prison
cures for deadly diseases. He works hard has a wife and
story with an up-to-death or reversed posthumous end.
two kids. At age 35, he discovers a drug that cures a
We examined three measures for each story: the re-
painful disease and is praised by the world until his death
sponses to “How good is this life” and “How much total
at age 75. After his death it is found that the drug causes
happiness is in this life?” and “How much total unhappi-
serious birth defects in the babies conceived by people on
ness is in this life?” The results of each comparison are
this drug. His drug is said to have caused more harm than
displayed in Table 1. In all six cases (comparisons of dif-
good and Alex’s work is discredited.”
ferences between two pairs of stories, on three measures),
Negative prison story pairs: “Jose devotes his life to
the valence of the posthumous event signi?cantly in?u-
being a political activist. He works hard has a wife and
enced the life goodness or happiness ratings (p<0.001 in
two kids. At age 35, he is thrown in jail as a traitor to
all comparisons but unhappiness in the political prisoner
his government where he remains in terrible conditions
scenario). That is, posthumous events affected judgments
until his death at age 75. After his death he is ?nally
of the goodness of lives, and even the judgment of the
recognized as one of the most forward-looking political
happiness of lives. The effect was always in the direction
thinkers and becomes a hero and martyr of his country.”
of moving the total life evaluation in the valence direction
Religiosity was measured on a four-point scale, from
of the posthumous event. The mean change for posthu-
“not at all” to “extremely” religious.
mous effect size for happiness/unhappiness is about one
half of the change for goodness of life.
2.2 Results
To provide some perspective on the evaluations of the
up-to-death and posthumous stories, the initial “vanilla”
In the SurveyMonkey format, participants cannot see or
story was rated (mean) 68.1 for personal good life, 79.1
access the rating they made to any prior question. As a
for happiness and 22.9 for unhappiness. Because this life
result, if people intended to rate the two lives the same,
is considered quite positive, there is a ceiling ceiling ef-
they would have to try to remember what they had previ-
fect. Therefore, the vanilla story is signi?cantly different
ously rated. In the context of 5 ratings each of 18 stories,
from the negative event stories, but not from the positive
this would not be possible.
event stories.
We have a measure of reliability because we presented
The correlation between religiosity and the difference
the initial (“vanilla”) story a second time, in the 18th posi-
between prison life and posthumous is 0.03, in the pre-
tion, for all participants. The mean ratings on goodness of
dicted positive direction but minimal. The negative corre-
life differed by only 2.9 points, with a mean differences
lation predicted between religiosity and the up-to-death-
for happiness of 2.5 and unhappiness of 1.9 (none signif-
posthumous difference for the drug discovery story is also
icantly different at p<.05). Reliability correlations (based
in the predicted direction r (68)= -0.10, but not signi?-
on ?rst versus ?nal baseline story, across 68 participants)
cant.

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Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4, June 2009
Posthumous events and happiness
276
The low correlation between religiosity and posthu-
life is good if it is viewed as an engaging story. A num-
mous effects is somewhat surprising. The reason for
ber of scholars in philosophy (Velleman, 1993; Kupper-
this low correlation may be that religions hold different
man, 2006) and psychology (Baerger & McAdams, 1999;
views about the afterlife. Posthumous events should be
King, Hicks et al., 2005) have suggested that lives are
most relevant for religions with a belief in an afterlife
like narratives, and that a good life makes a good story.
because the afterlife blurs the line of where a life truly
Coherence and ending are both important aspects of the
ends, makes salient the impact of one’s life after death,
goodness of stories, and hence judgments of lives may be
and introduces the possibility of awareness of posthu-
at least in part judgments of the degree of engagement of
mous events. Christianity clearly designates an afterlife
the audience in a life story.
in which the quality of one’s life determines one’s af-
In an initial attempt to explore this variable, we asked
terlife. This is much less the case for some other reli-
30 undergraduates to read each of the 18 stories and sim-
gions, such as Judaism. Our sample contained 21 Chris-
ply rate: “How good a story is this life?”, 0 being equal
tians (as opposed to other religions or atheist/agnostic,
to “not good at all” and 100 being “as good as possi-
which was one of the alternatives). The Christian sub-
ble.” Examination of these results indicated that the ma-
group yielded religiosity — posthumous difference cor-
jor in?uence on this judgment was the valence of the end-
relations that were about the same as that for the entire
ing of the story (thus, good story meant, to a large de-
sample. Religiosity still does not have a signi?cant effect.
gree, good ending). Mean goodness of story and good-
Of course we did not ask the most critical questions: “Do
ness of life (as rated by the participants in Study 1 corre-
you believe in an afterlife? Do you believe the quality of
lated 0.84). The positively reversed prisoner story rates
your afterlife is related to the quality of your good works
much higher (mean 51.5) than the negatively reversed
on earth? If you believe in an afterlife, do you believe
drug story (mean 39.9) even though both have similar
that one can be aware of events after one’s death?”
structure.
Another reason religiosity may not have correlated is
To avoid this confound, we ran a second group of
that the mapping from afterlife beliefs to posthumous
participants.
We rewrote the question to make clear
judgments is much more complex than we had antici-
that “good story” means “how ENGAGING it is, how
pated. We assumed that individuals would be inclined
INTERESTING a movie or book this life story would
to weigh posthumous events regardless of the valence
make.” We also correlated the number of words in the
of the event. The posthumous effect for the drug life,
story with ratings of the goodness of the life. We believe
for which the posthumous change is negative (scored as
that despite the research on engaging and good stories,
up-to-death — posthumous) should be positive for those
the goodness of a life is not fully explained by the de-
who consider posthumous lives relevant, but the score
gree to which it is an engaging story, and that this does
for those same individuals should be negative for the
not account for most of the posthumous effect we report
prison story (up-to-death — posthumous). Therefore, in-
in Study 1. Indeed, if it did, then the drug story with the
sofar as there is a coherent posthumous perspective, we
reversed negative ending would be rated as a better life
would predict negative correlations between posthumous
than the up-to-death version.
difference scores for the negative and positive lives. That
is, the more posthumous events increase positive evalu-
3.1 Method
ations, the more they increase negative evaluations. In
fact, for goodness of life, the correlation is 0.16 (n.s.), for
We solicited one more rating of each of the 18 stories
happiness, 0.24 (n.s.) and for unhappiness, 0.16 (n.s.);
from a sample of 38 undergraduates, in the SurveyMon-
all three are not signi?cant, and in addition, opposite in
key format. Participants made only one rating for each
direction to what a coherent attitude would predict. So
story, and were instructed: “How GOOD is the life story.
it appears that negative and positive posthumous effects
This means how ENGAGING it is, how INTERESTING
are uncorrelated, perhaps contributing to the already sub-
a movie or book this life story would make.” The scale
stantial literature showing independence of a variety of
was 0 (not good at all) to 100 (as good as possible).
negative and positive effects (Diener & Emmons, 1985;
Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988; Cacioppo & Bernstom,
1994).
3.2 Results
As can be seen from Table 2, the engagingness of a
story is poorly related to the goodness of the life ratings.
3 Study 2
The most engaging story was the prisoner reversal story
(mean 73.3), but this was the next to lowest goodness of
In the second study, we aimed to rule out an alternative
life (mean 41.1). The least engaging story, not surpris-
account for the posthumous effects that would suggest a
ingly, was the vanilla story (mean 21.9), but this was rated

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Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4, June 2009
Posthumous events and happiness
277
Table 2: Goodness of life in relation to goodness and engagingness of story
Goodness of life
Engagingness of
Story
Rating
Story length (words)
(mean)
Story (mean)
Drug
Up-to-death
87.4
52.1
43.0
discovery
Posthumous
55.4
51.5
81.0
Political
Up-to-death
20.2
40.6
44.0
prisoner
Posthumous
41.1
73.3
68.0
as the second best life (mean 67.2). Across the 17 stories,
the life span. Another alternative account subsumes the
the correlation between mean engagingness of story from
happiness ?nding under what is called epistemic egocen-
the present study and goodness of life from study 1 was
trism: “a dif?culty in setting aside privileged informa-
only .06.
tion that one knows to be unavailable to another party”
Across the 17 stories, story length correlates with
(Royzman, Cassidy & Baron, 2003). In the present case,
goodness of life r = ?0.10, and with engagingness of
the knowledge that the participant has of the posthumous
story r = 0.60 (p<0.01). Thus, length does relate to en-
outcome of a life is re?ected back upon the person in the
gagingness but not to goodness of life. Since the reversal
story, as if the outcome was in some way known to this
makes a story longer, there is some confound between
person.
length and posthumous events.
The correlation between rated happiness of lives and
Valence of story trumps engagingness when it comes
goodness of lives (Study 1) varied between 0.46 and
to relation to the goodness of a life. To determine if there
0.78 (mean of 0.61 for the 17 stories). This reinforces
was any engagingness effect, we computed correlations
prior theorizing and thinking about the relation between
separately for the 8 (including the vanilla story) of the 17
pleasure and meaning. For example, Aristotle (1962)
stories with positive endings and the 7 with negative end-
noted that the good life is not just the summed net plea-
ings (leaving out vanilla). With valence factored out in
sure, but has a more meaningful component, which he
this way, we got correlations between engagingness and
included with the term “eudemonia.” Seligman (2002),
good life of r = 0.48 for positive and r = 0.38 for negative
some 2,000 years later, identi?ed pleasure, meaning and
outcomes. These nonsigni?cant correlations suggest that
engagement as three basic components of a good life, and
there might be a modest relation between engagingness
examinations of this issue by others also suggests that
of story and goodness of life, when holding valence of
both pleasure and meaning have to be taken into account
the ending constant.
(e.g., King & Napa. 1998; King, Eells & Burton, 2005;
Kupperman, 2006). Of course, pleasure and meaning
are related, as shown in the experimental work of Laura
3.3 Discussion
King and her colleagues (King, Hicks, Krull & Del Gaiso,
Posthumous events re?ect on judged goodness of a life.
2006). Sensing meaning can induce pleasure, and a good
Although somewhat surprised by this ?nding, there are
mood (pleasure) can promote the perception of meaning
frameworks within which it is comprehensible. One such
in one’s life.
framework is simply that a “life” can be construed as not
Religiosity does not appear to be correlated with how
limited to the birth-death period. Common references to
much better or worse the life is judged to be with the
“legacies” imply this larger frame. The effect of posthu-
posthumous reversal as compared to that same life with-
mous events on rated happiness of the life is more dif?-
out the posthumous reversal. However, religiosity may be
cult to explain.
important only when the religion believes in an afterlife.
The happiness (unhappiness) effect is about half of the
Unfortunately, we did not ask participants their personal
life goodness effect, but it is signi?cant. That the happi-
belief in an afterlife and cannot fully rule out belief in an
ness rating is not the same for the life and posthumous
afterlife as an alternative explanation of our posthumous
conditions for any individual might result from a gen-
effect.
eral “halo” effect. The changed ending changes the qual-
In Study 2 we tested the idea that our effect was a re-
ity of the “life” story, and this general valence change
sult of posthumous endings creating more engaging and
generalizes to the life-limited ratings. It is also possi-
better stories. Our results suggest that engagingness (plot
ble that some participants did not take happiness to mean
structure) may have some effect on goodness of life, but
something like the summed experienced happiness across
it is overshadowed by valence of ending. “Good sto-

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Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 4, No. 4, June 2009
Posthumous events and happiness
278
ries,” in the literary domain, are often tragedies. Changes
ization of a common process. But even if this were true,
in fortune are often part of good stories. Many people
one still needs at least one more assumption (about the
think Hamlet is a good story, and surely an engaging one.
limits of a life) to account for the fact that posthumous
This leaves open many questions about what is a good
events in?uence judgments of the happiness of a life in
story, what is an engaging story, and what this has to do
third party judgments. If one espouses a belief in an af-
with a good life. Surely, story judgments will have to
terlife, retroactive re-evaluation in the posthumous case
be more sophisticated than the simple judgments we used
can actually be accomplished by the party in question.
here (note for example, the rich conception of story co-
But absent an afterlife, or in the presence of an afterlife
herence used by McAdams and his colleagues [Baerger
that does not include re?ection on the past, the retroac-
& McAdams, 1999]).
tive re-evaluation that we posit can only take place by a
Religiosity and quality/engagingness of life narrative
third party. This is quite different from the quite common
seem not to be major predictors of the posthumous ef-
retroactive re-evaluations that occur by living individuals
fect. This study opens up some questions that will re-
with respect to their own experiences.
quire further empirical study. We believe that, in contem-
In this presumably more common case, the good-
porary American culture, posthumous events really can
ness and even the happiness of prior events can actually
affect life judgments. We would not be surprised if this
change in a ?rst person evaluation.
effect was bigger in traditional cultures, and might often
As re?ected in the ?rst sentence of this article, the re-
include the success of one’s children after one’s death.
cruitment of posthumous events has the bene?t of im-
Our data suggest that these posthumous events may also
proving life evaluations, since almost all lives end on a
re?ect on perceived life happiness. The latter, more sur-
very negative event (death), and the relevance of posthu-
prising ?nding surely needs more investigation to control
mous events promises to displace death from its deadly
for less interesting accounts.
terminal position. Further investigation would surely
Given that posthumous events occur after a life is over
want to incorporate world-view of individuals, religiosity,
they represent a good model for understanding how in-
and the particular religion (since views of afterlife differ
formation based on events that occur after the termina-
across religions). As well, concerns about mortality, both
tion of the main event can retroactively affect not only
existential and “momentary”, which have been shown to
their meaning, but the perception of the individuals hap-
in?uence all sorts of judgments in the literature on terror
piness during the main event. The posthumous event or
management theory (Solomon et al., 2004), might well
the discovery of new information after an event has ended
be relevant to third party quality of whole life judgments.
allows for the realization of the event’s “true meaning.”
This study has implications for a wide range of events
People are sensitive to the perception that happiness was
ranging from relationships to careers, and other life span-
based on something that turned out to be bad or evil, or
ning situations. It raises the idea of retrospective re-
conversely, that they suffered for something that turned
evaluation.
Although by force of circumstances, the
out to be worthwhile. This sense of false happiness or
present paper had to be evaluated prior to publication, it’s
worthwhile suffering allows for retroactive alteration of
ultimate contribution will have to be re- evaluated post-
one’s emotional state.
publication.
We refer to this process as retroactive re-evaluation.
The demonstration of this “process” at work in posthu-
mous life evaluations may be a special case of a rather
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